I had been researching laptops for more than a year before I bought this one. After buying my son an ASUS UL50VT for Christmas after extensive research, I was hooked on ASUS. Good reviews, nice design, good performance. My laptop needs are viewing movies and shows, heavy surfing, downloading and burning, playing music, and light gaming. This is perfect for my needs.
The first thing I noticed about this one is the keyboard; it is a 'chiclet design' with wider caps which make it extremely comfortable for typing. A lot less errors on my part. The ELAN touchpad (smartpad) is super. For the last year, I have borrowed a friend's ACER and his touchpad drives me crazy. It zooms, the cursor moves and jumps about all the time, frustrating me to no end; I finally had to disable it completely. With this computer, palm detection notes the difference between the palm and a finger so that the cursor doesn't jump around while typing. You can also do pinch and zoom. The large palm rest area is supercomfortable as well and minimizes smudges, unlike the rubbery type ones you see which I hate.
I like the Power4Gear which allows you to select your desired processor mode to conserve battery life and have fan power adjusted. Very handy. The Intel I3 Core is more than enough for my needs, lightening fast, and the NVIDEA GEFORCE 310M graphics is excellent for the light gaming that I do.
The sunken hinges enhance viewing by providing a wider more comfortable and less distracting viewing experience, as well as making the laptop look much more visually appealing and sleek. The sound is great (SRS with ALTEC lansing speakers) for media and music. The computer is really sleek and cool looking and my son prefers it to the design of his.
The first thing that I didn't like is the screen brightness; unless I have it on full brightness, I can't see it. It seems to be dimmer than others I have used, even on full brightness, but maybe it's my imagination? I had it side by side my friend's ACER, with the annoying touchpad, and my son's ASUS UL50VT and both of their screens appeared brighter.
My major disappointment is the battery life, despite a little sticker on the computer that states 'great battery power' or something like that. With screen brightness mid range and just using it for moderate surfing and office applications, the battery only lasts two hours. I had expected more. Another annoying thing is the frequent disappearance of the power icon in the taskbar; the setting to turn it on in the taskbar is greyed out. After googling some forums, I followed the recommendation, logged off and back on. Bingo, the power icon was back. But since the battery life is a disappointment, I don't want to be fiddling around trying to see the power icon to have notice of when it will die.
Conclusion: excellent value. Biggest PRO: other than the speed of I3 (and it is really really fast), it would be the touchpad and keyboard. Biggest CON: battery life.
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I have had this product for two years now. In fact, my two year warranty ran out four days ago. However, I am having hardware failures for the third time since my purchase.
I work in IT and take very good care of this notebook. It never leaves my desk unless I am travelling and I am careful to keep the notebook safe while travelling. I keep my computer free of viruses and malware and regularly clean it with CCleaner and a disk defrag. However, one year after my purchase my hard drive was the first piece of hardware to fail me. I sent in my notebook and two weeks later received my notebook with a new HDD.
A few months ago, my notebook started failing again until it finally would not boot at all. I sent it in and again they fixed my issues and sent me back my new notebook. However, they only replaced the motherboard and the back of the laptop and did not fix the cracked casing around my screen or the dead pixels on my screen like I had requested.
Now, four days after my warranty has run out, my battery has stopped charging and my computer will not turn on unless it is plugged in. This is generally fine for me although it is an inconvenience. However, my HDD also seems to be failing as it has started making clicking noises that are a sign of it failing and documents have been taking far to long to pull up. I contacted Asus support and even though my warranty so recently ran out and I've already had to send in my notebook twice for issues that never should have happened in the first place, they refuse to provide me with service.
In short I do not recommend this notebook to anyone looking for a quality PC. The parts must be terrible quality to fail so quickly and the customer service I've received has been terrible in comparison to any other company I've ever dealt with.
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I have had this laptop for several months now, and I must say I love it. It took me a long time to even consider buying a laptop since they simply do not have the capacity of desktop computers. However, after owning this ASUS K52 I have become a believer. The layout is great, the design is sleek, and the performance is above my expectations.
Layout and Design: The layout of the laptop is great. The keyboard design is large and spacious enough that my fat fingers do not make the typos I typically make on other, smaller, designs. It also has a full numpad, which is a feature I truly hate not having available. The screen size is plenty big enough to browse the internet, write papers, and/or play games with ease. It is also a sleek and cosmetically pleasing design with rounded edges and corners.
Performance: Now on to the most important aspect of any computer, its performance. I have been able to run any game I have desired to play (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Star Wars The Old Republic) on medium to high settings without much in the way of slow down and frame rate issues. I haven't had any problems with the hardware malfunctioning through all the use I put this thing through. It boots fast, and it plays fast. I also use this computer for all of my many school papers, payments online, and pretty much everything you can use a computer for these days. It has never failed me and continues to perform today as it did the first day I received it.
Conclusion: Overall, it's a great piece of machinery. I love it. It serves all of the purposes I have had for it. There are more pricey laptops out there with a bit more power under the hood, but I have found this one to have plenty to run all the games I love and to quickly and reliably completely all the other tasks I have had for it.
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I ordered this two years ago for my grandson, the gamer, for Christmas. It is still working just great and was perfect for anyone who needs a computer for playing games! He loved it and still does!
